"A [preacher] who does not love art, poetry, music and nature can be dangerous. Blindness and deafness toward the beautiful are not incidental; they are necessarily reflected in his [preaching]." — BXVI

20 February 2016

Love calling us into vast distances

Province of St. Martin de Porres 2016 Lenten Reflection

Saturday of the 1st Week of Lent

Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP

Deut 26:16-19 / Ps 119:1-2, 4-5, 7-8 2 / Matt 5:43-48

"It
is also good to love: because love is difficult . . . it is a high
inducement for the individual to ripen, to become something in himself,
to become world, to become world in himself for the sake of another
person; it is a great, demanding claim on him, something that chooses
him and calls him to vast distances." - R. M. Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet, no. 7, 1904.

Love
ain't easy. I mean, the sort of love that demands that we not only
think and will the good of another but that we also do the good for
them. It is difficult enough sometimes to love those we are hard-wired
to love - mom, dad, brothers, sisters, our children. And those we have
chosen to love - friends, wives, husbands. But for Christ to lay on us
the near-impossible task of loving those who hate us, who seek to hurt
us . . . well, that is just sacrificial.

And
it is meant to be a sacrificial demand, a demand that requires
sacrifice. What do we have to sacrifice to will and do the good for our
enemies? At the very least, we must sacrifice the very notion that we
can have enemies. Others can hate us. Seek to harm us. We may be enemies
for them, but they can only be enemies for us if we return their hatred
and seek to harm them.

Jesus
denounces the habit of loving only those who love us in return. He
asks, "Do not the pagans do the same?" Lent is a time of repentance and
sacrifice. What better season to examine closely not only who we love
but also how we love? Ask yourself: what is specifically Christ-like
about the way I love? Is my love nurturing my growth in holiness? Is my
love leading me to daily conversion, to the Way of the Cross?